Ghostwriter, lover of the arts, and wannabe world traveler.

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passion. in the lower case.

“But what are you passionate about Paul?,” my movement teacher inquired after a ferocious bout of ‘sound and motion’ this Wednesday in Hell’s Kitchen.

My jaw locked. My shoulders drew up to my ears. My toes curled inward. I had just spent an hour and a half moving around wildly, allowing my every breath and impulse to be translated into movements and sudden bursts of sound; I had felt so free and unencumbered and open to evaluate and come to the present moment of my life – and just when the moment came to put all this work into a word and speak my truth. . . I clammed up.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Can I tell you next week?” Wah-wah.

And that’s how it always is isn’t it? Would I cease to be an artist if I were able to just put my truth out there in life and not lean on the crutch of a playwright, a director or a choreographer to help me channel it into perspective?

There is this fire inside. This burning desire that brings you to your feet, to class, to the stage and it feels so certain and human and essential and intrinsic to your nature that you feel it is rightfully yours. Then why all the trouble figuring out how to express it yourself? Why the cold feet? The self-doubt? The desperate attempts to back up this intangible idea, this inner greatness with exterior BS?

I really don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

I just pulled $5,000 out of my savings last week to help back a new show I am working on with, well let’s just say a “very special someone”, and although I trust the process completely and know that with hard work we can really let our inner passion shine through this project – I am crippled with doubts. How can it shine, how can it be all worth it if I don’t even know what it is? I mean really Paul what is your fucking passion?!?

I just feel that I am running into walls everywhere I turn and the wall is me. I wish I could run away on a year-long retreat. Or go to Germany or Iceland or China or Greece and just do my thing- A show of self-discovery and unabashed Passion with a capital P! I would do it in the streets if I had to! But that will never happen. I’m way too rigid. Wah-wah.